colomar wrote:I don't want the discussion to drift apart, but out of curiosity: Do you have a link to an article stating that they're actually going to migrate back to Windows? Because the latest info I have is that the mayor would like to see a migration back, but that the head of IT doesn't see it coming in reality.

No link, no official statement. Experience.

a) Limux was done very loudly, 1000 eyes looked there.
b) It's a tactical (other offices) and strategical (gov requires odf, "why do we still need MS office licenses and ribbons? Can we just try OOo on Windows?") threat on MS' cahshcow.
c) Making it fail will make it fail loudly as well ("Impossible w/o MS technology!") - big win.
d) MS is gonna fight - and MS is not known to fight "fair" or "by the rules"
e) Government decisions are ultimately not taken by technicians, but politicians. Always. What the Munich IT says simply doesn't matter.
f) The mayor has a backgound of public management and minor legal stuff and complained about Limux because of the integration of his iPhone.... And he outed himself as "microsoft fan"....
What do you think makes a man (with a private iPhone...), who could not tell you the difference between ntos and svchost, "fan" of a software company? Seriously.
g) MS moves to Munich, what is even more important since the double Irish is gone now. (And I bet Munich will get some cuts as sugar on top to make the costs look smaller) - that's the political asset for Reiter to operate on.
h) Office people are not exactly technophile - they literally *hate* computers. They hate any change even more, because of the way they use the system (it has sth. to do with post-it!s and hadwritten workflows they may have memorized - and no: that is unfortunately not a joke).
This is the objective asset to operate on ("Users complain! Limux is bad! WE. NEED. MICROSOFT!") - the following complaints (they're not getting back XP, but Metro and ribbons - maybe even kolab remains =) will safely be ignored.
i) Profit.

This is not gonna happen in one big move (*too* loud, too many questions), but it is gonna happen (and annouced loudly afterwards)

I'd like an ideal world, but in an ideal world, ppl. would write markup texts and commit them to a git repo in a distributed raid. And they would not abuse excel as a "database with integrated visuals"

/realitycheck

OK it seems that I'm guilty of jumping to conclusions, so I apologise.
Too used to others (not KDE... GNOME, M$) telling users how they should use their computers.
I certainly wan't suggesting starting from scratch Uri, if that's what you thought... Simply a handful of icons such as 'cut' which has at the moment been reverted to a traditional metaphor anyway.
I am using Plasma 5 with Breeze every day so it clearly is not as bad as Win8 or earlier GNOME 3 releases!
Also I sincerely hope that one day Munich is using Plasma 5 not Win10!
P

I propose to focus on positives VDG efforts like HIG / Breeze must take hundreds of man-years in corporations. And yet we have awesome results at a fraction of the cost!

We're on good track.

As our Icon tests have been brought into the battle, I feel I need to add some random thoughts to the discussion...

The value of the icon tests is NOT to take their results 100% and stop thinking afterwards. They are an indicator, and we need to fill up the results with our own thoughts, other indicators,... Only what makes sense should be considered. And Uri, you are right - how can one expect new metaphors to work perfectly on the first attempt?

So what makes an icons good? I personally believe - after lots of icon tests we have done - that a good icon:

• is clearly distinguishable from other icons and
• reuses elements

So I do believe that both - the traditional floppy and the scissors - are great icons, because they are clearly distinguishable. I would personally always vote for keeping them. They are iconic - what better can you say about an icon? (same goes e.g. for printer, even though my printer does not look like the printer icon).

If we nevertheless want to change the cut icon (we cannot improve it, as it is one of the best icons there is - but still it might make sense to change things from time to time e.g. for creating an own design language), then we need to make good (re)use of elements - in the context of cut, we would have to e.g. introduce a clear picture of a document. This element needs to be visible in all icons that deal with documents - cut, copy, paste, new, print, ... so users can learn the meaning. On top we need to add something clearly distinguishable to make the function clear.

So if I was asked to positively criticize the current icons, I would say that the proposed cut icon might work better, if it gets more support from other icons, like copy, paste (which are known to not work well), New, Print and so on...

bjoernbalazs said
I would say that the proposed cut icon might work better, if it gets more support from other icons, like copy, paste (which are known to not work well)

Assuming you mean make them all visually linked in some way then i totally agree if we can find a better way! One thought, if we're putting forward ideas for redoing all 3 Cut, Copy & Paste icons to compliment each other then i think the System tray one needs considering with those three too - it would be odd if Cut, Copy & Paste followed one style/theme etc and the System tray icon was totally different!

Foolin' around. Not sure why an alpha channel should be a problem, but this variant omits it.
Also the icons are smaler and less busy.

bjoernbalazs wrote:As our Icon tests have been brought into the battle, I feel I need to add some random thoughts to the discussion...

The value of the icon tests is NOT to take their results 100% and stop thinking afterwards. They are an indicator, and we need to fill up the results with our own thoughts, other indicators,... Only what makes sense should be considered. And Uri, you are right - how can one expect new metaphors to work perfectly on the first attempt?

So what makes an icons good? I personally believe - after lots of icon tests we have done - that a good icon:

• is clearly distinguishable from other icons and
• reuses elements

So I do believe that both - the traditional floppy and the scissors - are great icons, because they are clearly distinguishable. I would personally always vote for keeping them. They are iconic - what better can you say about an icon? (same goes e.g. for printer, even though my printer does not look like the printer icon).

If we nevertheless want to change the cut icon (we cannot improve it, as it is one of the best icons there is - but still it might make sense to change things from time to time e.g. for creating an own design language), then we need to make good (re)use of elements - in the context of cut, we would have to e.g. introduce a clear picture of a document. This element needs to be visible in all icons that deal with documents - cut, copy, paste, new, print, ... so users can learn the meaning. On top we need to add something clearly distinguishable to make the function clear.

So if I was asked to positively criticize the current icons, I would say that the proposed cut icon might work better, if it gets more support from other icons, like copy, paste (which are known to not work well), New, Print and so on...

Thanks so, so much bjoernbalazs for sharing this pragmatic perspective on interpreting those icon test results and on how we might successfully explore new metaphors (which I think we need to be able to do - even if we stumble and get back up).

jstaniek wrote:For me this single change shows a difference between a good designer and a great designer: knowing the limits.

You're definitely the latter for me!
Thanks.

Thanks.

luebking wrote:Foolin' around. Not sure why an alpha channel should be a problem, but this variant omits it.
Also the icons are smaler and less busy.

Because when users use the icons in color schemes other than that of Breeze they will look different.

By the way, they're incredible crammed and not recognizable, you can use the full width of the canvas, but there's also other icons placed next to this an before so it also can't be completely wide when the others placed around it won't be like that, also the the little triangle means to me "insert" rather than taken from X and moving to Y. It's also far more complicated than the scissors and the icon I had used.

When performing cut the users is moving X to Y - cut and paste
When performing copy the user is reproducing X in Y - copy and paste